Owner Financing for old single woman owner

[Vince Priolo]

I’m currently renting 1 side of a duplex that is owned by a 70+ year old single woman. She bought this place back in the 80’s as a rental investment. My wife and I are in escrow on our first house so we’re moving out and during a discussion with her yesterday, I realized she doesn’t know what to do with this duplex. She also doesn’t want to deal with tenants anymore. She’s had some really bad experiences in the past with tenants fighting and now that I’m leaving, she’s going to have to risk those same experiences. I have been here for 7 years and she loved me as a tenant.

So here is my question, what are some strategies from others BiggerPockets members that have used owner financing to help an owner like this get money for their property, never deal with a tenants again and allow me to get ownership of this house!!! She’s an amazing lady and I want to help her get the money she deserves from this duplex (it’s worth ~$1.5M in Newport Beach,CA) but never deal with being a landlord again. I’m only assuming owner financing is the best approach from listening to so many BiggerPockets podcasts but I’m open to better creative options. Thank you very much in advance for any help I can get.

[Colton Fairchild]

This is a perfect opportunity for owner financing that can be a win/win for both of you. I would start by determining what each unit would rent for and reverse engineer to figure out what you can realistically purchase the property for. Good thing for you is that you know how much you have paid for the past 7 years and you know the area well. 

Questions to consider:

- The units probably need to updated... you should get quotes on how much $ that will amount to.

- What will they rent for after they are updated?

- Do you have capital provide her with a down payment or are you trying to put 0% down?

- Have you asked her what price she has in mind?

- What amount of money does she need per month to be equivalent to what she is currently receiving? 

Here's a good article that has a lot of detail on Seller Financing